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In support of Laurie Penny

Not a post I expected to be writing this afternoon; it was to be about Laurie’s interesting comments on Channel 4 News last night.

However, that’s been trumped, and this is now about online harrassment.

One of the Youtube video’s of one of Laurie’s TV appearances over the weekend received this comment from a Twitter user called @regul, which account has now been deleted:

Brian Whelan, of Yahoo Ireland, who was prominent in summer 2011 as one of the bloggers who helped expose writer Johann Hari as a fraud, rapidly tracked down the commenter from his supposedly ‘anonymous’ account name and other breadcrumbs which were lying around the internet – Facebook accounts, Amazon accounts and others, and posted an article.

This is not particularly difficult to do in most cases.

While not an active death threat, this comment is utterly unacceptable, and seems to me to come within the category of online harassment, defined in the 1997 Protection from Harassment Act:

Prohibition of harassment.

(1) A person must not pursue a course of conduct—(a) which amounts to harassment of another, and(b) which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment of the other.and would come within the category of stalking if repeated.

There is also a Civil Remedy (i.e. damages) available under the same Act:

3 Civil Remedy

(1) An actual or apprehended breach of section 1 may be the subject of a claim in civil proceedings by the person who is or may be the victim of the course of conduct in question.

(2) On such a claim, damages may be awarded for (among other things) any anxiety caused by the harassment and any financial loss resulting from the harassment.

To my eye it may also qualify as an offence under the Public Order Act 1986:

4A Intentional harassment, alarm or distress.

(1) A person is guilty of an offence if, with intent to cause a person harassment, alarm or distress, he—(a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or(b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting,thereby causing that or another person harassment, alarm or distress.

There’s been something of a campaign over the last several months, particularly in the New Statesman, particularly for harassment of female writers.

I’d like to see this kind of offence prosecuted or at least reported to the police, and I’m in support of Laurie should she choose to do so, although there are also other remedies available, such as in this case a report to @regul’s University.

There can be opposition to a writer, satirical comparisons, demonstrations of incompetence, insults, even expressions of contempt. In my book those are all acceptable, even when officious law makers try to regulate them away. This one is way over any line of acceptability.

My support is not entirely altruistic, because of hoary old myths which have become attached to the anti-harassment campaign.

Julia Hobsbawm has written that the key problem is not misogyny but anonymity:

The key issue here is not actually misogyny – although it is clearly prevalent, on the increase with particularly violent and criminal intent, one writer having both her home address and a threat to rape her published in a single comment – but anonymity.

This is wrong, and I wouldn’t completely agree that it is misogyny either, but that is one for another day. Brian Whelan has demonstrated in this case that anonymity is much harder to maintain than a lot of people think, and it is only thought to be a problem rather than being a significant real one.

It is possible to be difficult to find online, but it usually takes so much effort and so many adminstration overheads in maintenance of accounts, emails, diversions, proxies and the rest as to not be worthwhile. And if it is worthwhile, then treating an offence seriously – by involving the legal authorities – makes anonymity even harder to maintain, as most internet companies will comply with legal demands from Police or Courts.

Julia has also exhumed the old “Mainstream Media Professionals Good; Amateurs Bad” hobby-horse and taken it out for a canter round the stableyard:

The hundreds of thousands of words a day written by paid commentators has been hard-won and designated, paid-for editing and sub-editing time is devoted to it. What has not happened in a decade in which the public’s voice has been used to add riposte to comment is the emergence of much new prized comment voice. Why not? Because of its quality as well as brevity.

This is quite a bold claim in the year of Hari and Hackgate, and it does not deserve house room for even ten seconds.

In addition to the paid media having more than it’s fair share of fools with wage packets, many of the recent crops of good new journalists start out as amateurs blogging. Many excellent writers also remain as unpaid or occasionally paid commentators.

But, while they are attached to a loud campaign about harassment, these myths may attain some traction.

So I’d like to see some of these harassment cases prosecuted to begin to close down the problem, and our day by day freedoms left alone, rather than having a lot of hot air produced about harassment, and our politicians introducing ill though-out new restrictions.

Tomorrow I may have a go at Laurie’s accuracy, reliability, competence, or sensationalism.

Abusive words don’t constitute harassment by themselves, there has to be intent to cause harassment.

Live by the blog, die by the blog. If you can’t stand the heat stay out of the kitchen etc.

As for being utterly unacceptable well the much-vaunted ‘toleration’ that we are all supposed to exhibit nowadays means putting up with things you don’t like, it doesn’t mean having to like it too. Not everything is acceptable to everyone and never will be, so learn to live with it.

>Abusive words don’t constitute harassment by themselves, there has to be intent to cause harassment.

I don’t think that’s so – I think it’s a ‘reasonable person ought to be aware that their words would cause alarm or distress’ type test.

>As for being utterly unacceptable well the much-vaunted ‘toleration’ that we are all supposed to exhibit nowadays means putting up with things you don’t like, it doesn’t mean having to like it too. Not everything is acceptable to everyone and never will be, so learn to live with it.

I draw the line at publishing graphic fantasies about killing named people.

Ms Penny I know not, though Mat W seems to have come over all Guardian synthetic rage about nothing on this. Brian Cox however is a different matter: A vain and not particularly intellectual little coprolite.

Laura Penny is an interesting test-case for one’s commitment to free speech. Rarely is one required to listen to such a vacuous, talentless, air-headed, IQ-devoid, motor-mouthed specimen of the human race as Ms Penny. But I am content for her to speak whetever drivel she wishes and leave it to the listeners to make their own conclusions. I respect her right to hold her fatuous opinions, I do not wish her physical harm and hope she lives long enough to use her evidently-challenged intellect to learn better. That’s what freedom of speech is about – and just as Ms Penny is allowed to utter her utter nonsense, so should anyone else be allowed to express thoughts on any topic, be that considered as Holocaust denial, insensitive to Muslim activities or unacceptable views of gay sex – the fact of simply being able to express it is the key freedom we are currently losing almost daily.

Help. I could be banged up for the intemperate comments I have made for years on the last Primeminister. If the tweeter was known personally to Ms Penny and had a caution say for stalking her, then it may be cause for some concern, but if you put your head above the parapet of public life you gotta be ready for whatever gets thrown at you. We do enough self censorship already in this society.

If it were safe to be critical of this article. I might say , all things being considered , and without rancour or antipathy . But in support of a point of view. That you sound like a social worker. With due respect etc etc.

If we support the removal of this fella’s freedom of speech today, or his prosecution for using it, then we’ve already lost any argument we may have later when someone comes to silence us.

An attack on any individual freedom of any one person is an attack on all freedoms of all people.

I for one am not quite ready to volunteer myself for prosecution just because I might suggest that a bullet through the head of any vacuous, self-styled ‘political commentator’ would be a kindness to the rest of humanity.

Just for clarity, I’m not saying I agree with the poster – quite the opposite, unprovoked violence is not really my thing – but I defend his right to express whatever views he holds.

Also, as stated above, that comment is not harassment, it’s just a piss poor attempt at a joke and an excuse for some arm waving by the intentionally offended.

Having finally managed to decipher the blurry screenshot, I can’t see what the fuss is about. Unless she were being deliberately obtuse for political purposes, even Ms Laurie herself would understand the comment for what it is: the malevolent extreme rhetoric that is the common currency of the web. It is certainly unpleasant, but there is no evident substantive threat. Nor is there harassment or cause for alarm in any realistic way.

Unfortunately yes, Henry, I have read some of her stuff and I have heard her speak on the steam wireless (“Any Questions”, I think it was.). I prefer to deploy the indulgent patriarchal chuckle with Ms Penny, leavened with the odd patronizing crack about how well she’s done “for a woman”. Far more effective at winding the self-righteous victimist bitch up than rhetorical threats of violence.

Interesting to note that although said lambasted commenter said he wanted to strangle the commentator in question, I’m left wondering where the ‘and a threat to rape her’ came from in his statement. The word and intent seems to be missing from the relevant comment. The strangling I got, the distaste I understand, and the stated intent to dominate, that much even I picked up on; but the intent to commit violent sexual penetration which constitutes rape in law? Where’d that come from? I missed it in the original. Silly old me.

Or might this be a case of projection? Wish fulfillment even? On whose part we can only speculate.

Five years ago I would have agreed that this is appalling and frightening, but now today it is just the same old same old. I’ve seen far worse than that on Twitter lately. And prosecuting these people is no where near as easy as one might think. The sad thing is that people are becoming hardened to it.

The Protection from Harassment Act requires at least two incidents to meet the ‘course of conduct’ definition and is likely to be inapplicable.

Try the Malicious Communications Act 1988 – way better –

Offence of sending letters etc. with intent to cause distress or anxiety.

(1)Any person who sends to another person —

(a)a letter, electronic communication or article of any description which conveys —

(i) a message which is indecent or grossly offensive;

(ii)a threat; or

(iii)information which is false and known or believed to be false by the sender; or

(b) any article or electronic communication which is, in whole or part, of an indecent or grossly offensive nature,

is guilty of an offence if his purpose, or one of his purposes, in sending it is that it should, so far as falling within paragraph (a) or (b) above, cause distress or anxiety to the recipient or to any other person to whom he intends that it or its contents or nature should be communicated.

(2) A person is not guilty of an offence by virtue of subsection (1)(a)(ii) above if he shows —

(a) that the threat was used to reinforce a demand made by him on reasonable grounds; and

(b) that he believed and had reasonable grounds for believing, that the use of the threat was a proper means of reinforcing the demand.

(2A)In this section “electronic communication” includes —

(a)any oral or other communication by means of a telecommunication system (within the meaning of the Telecommunications Act 1984 (c. 12)); and

(b) any communication (however sent) that is in electronic form.

(3) In this section references to sending include references to delivering or transmitting and to causing to be sent, delivered or transmitted and “sender” shall be construed accordingly.

(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, or to both.

When filling out any kind of application online, one has to select a ‘suitable’ option from a list. If, say, your job title isn’t on the list, tough, you have to pick the nearest one to it from the ‘official’ list in order to continue.

Perhaps what’s needed is for individual comments/tweets etc to be replaced with a (state approved) list of comments.